


Moving In

by Peggo



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluffy, M/M, houseplants ?, i have no clue what to tag this, it's just brain vomit, joe and jos are soft, moving in, putting up furniture, shopping together, they're in love ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 12:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25849489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peggo/pseuds/Peggo
Summary: Jos and Joe's adventures of domesticity.
Relationships: Jos Buttler/Joe Root
Comments: 11
Kudos: 8





	Moving In

**Author's Note:**

> There's really no rhyme or reason to this, it's just kind of some scenarios of them moving in together.  
> Hope you enjoy, nonetheless :)  
> Xx

Joe and Jos settle into living together relatively easily. It helps that in the months prior to officially moving in with each other they’d been spending increasingly lengthy periods of time at each others’, making it a matter of where they were going to live together, rather than whether they were going to live together.

They settle on an apartment that Joe takes a shining to, and that the estate agent promises them has ‘lots of potential.’ Despite the sinking feeling that that phrase gives Jos, they sign their names on all the forms and plan to move when their respective leases end. 

Joe’s lease finishes about a fortnight before Jos', and by the time Jos is moving into their apartment he's pleasantly surprised (and genuinely very impressed) at how Joe has managed to transform what he had written off as a rather sub-par apartment into what he can already tell Joe calls home. The hallway now has photo frames along the walls, with pictures of Jos, Joe and their friends all smiling down at him as he looks around. Joe’s put up some shelves in their kitchen area of the large open-plan living space that includes a dining area set up, and bookshelves and sofas acting as a living room. On the shelves Jos can see Joe’s trusty Delia Smith cook book, as well as coordinated jars of various teas, coffees and cocoas. He’s even taken it upon himself to gather some plants- a small indoor herb garden sitting on their window sill, as larger plans hang down from the shelves.  
Joe had clearly decided that the previous dining furniture was not up to his standards and had replaced it all with a light wooden table and new seats that matched the new barstools at the island, making the room feel larger than it had with dark wooden seating when they’d looked around. 

Joe beams at Jos as Jos takes in their new _home,_ and it is a home, Joe has made sure of that, arms spread and says, 

“Well? What do you think?” 

Jos wraps Joe up in his arms, bending down to bury his face in the crook of his neck and press kisses softly along his collar bones.

“It’s perfect, darling.” 

Joe grins, extracting himself from Jos, “Perfect. But it’s not done yet!” Taking Jos’ hand he leads him to a room to the left of their front door. When they had looked around the house, Jos had already ruled off that room as a lost cause, being too small to be a spare room, as their Estate Agent had suggested (and they already had one, how many guests did she think they’d be having over at one time), but too big to simply be storage, though that is what Jos had resigned its fate to be. 

Joe, clearly, had other ideas, and has already repainted the walls. On the floor is a flatpack box, IKEA logo standing out, and Joe turns to Jos. There’s an L-Shaped sofa squished into the room, that feels like it should be too big for the room but somehow fits without making the room seem smaller, and Jos realises Joe has created them a snug. 

“This felt like a two person job, and Billy and Mum went home before we finished and well, how would you like to assemble a… _svalnäs_ with me.” From what Jos can tell from the diagram a _svalnäs_ is a wall mounted set of shelving and storage combination.

“That’s definitely not how you say it.” 

“Alright, smarty pants, I’ll come back when I’m fluent Swedish, shall I..?” Jos presses a kiss to Joe’s nose, scrunched up because he’s frowning, that ridiculous pout of his visible in the push of his lips. 

“Don’t worry. I'll still love you even though you’re not fluent Swedish.”

Half an hour later, Jos isn’t sure he loves Joe as much as he did half an hour ago, 

“What do you mean you _don’t know_ what page of the instructions we’re on?”

“You opened the window!! The pages blew!! This is only like, 75% my fault, Jos.” He hands Jos the instructions, before flopping face down, limbs outstretched and heaving a sigh. 

“Can you pass me the medium sized screw?” 

“There’s only a big one or a little one, bub, your choice.”

“There’s definitely a medium sized one somewhere.”

“OK, babe.”

“I’m _being serious Jos, it legit says ‘secure with medium screw’._ ”

“We’re going to have to-”

“We’re not calling Ali.”

Two hours later, they’re on facetime with Ali, as he guides them through the assembly of their _svalnäs._ Jimmy occasionally comes in to laugh at them, and Ali bemusedly asks ‘remind me again, why exactly I can’t come round to just put it up for you, Joey?’ 

“Don’t want to spoil the surprise of what our apartment looks like.” Jos raises an eyebrow at Joe from behind the chair the phone’s propped up on, “And that would be losing” he mumbles, hoping it doesn’t get picked up by his phone. (It does, Jimmy rolls his eyes, and Ali tries his best to hide a smile.)

Another hour later, and they say their goodbyes to Ali, looking proudly at their _svalnäs_. Jos thinks it was all worth it from the way Joe happily smiles at it, before racing away and returning with a large cardboard box of knick knacks. Jos doesn’t know where half of them have come from, but Joe assembles picture frames, these ones much more intimate than those proudly on display in their hall, with photos of Joe asleep on Jos, or them dancing at Ali and Jimmy’s wedding, as well as some of the most intimate moments of their friendships. There’s one of Jos pushing Jonny in a trolley around an abandoned car park, taken by Joe, and Chris is in the background taking his own photo. Next to it is a dimly lit photo of Ben and Joe on the kitchen floor. Jos remembers it well, he’d taken the photo, from a day Joe had received some bad news. Jos had driven over as soon as he could, but by the time he’d managed to make it, Ben was already at Joe’s and had soothed him to sleep and then, stuck under Joe, had fallen asleep himself. There are several other photos, alongside a collection of Wisdens and some additional bits and bobs (more houseplants, some vases and various man of the match trophies.) They stand in the doorway, surveying the room, Joe tucked tightly under Jos’ arm, and it all feels like home.

* * *

Jos gets up earlier than Joe at the weekend and does their weekly shopping on Saturday morning, 0900 sharp and over the past month that he’s been going to their local shop he’s built up a friendly rapport with the other few customers that get their shopping out of the way as soon as possible. 

Five weeks into living with each other and it’s Friday night. They’re in their snug, watching Star Wars, when Joe mumbles incoherently as the orders for Leia’s home planet to be destroyed are given out, and Jos turns the volume down, asking Joe to repeat himself. 

“Wanna go shopping with you tomorrow, bub.” 

At first Jos isn’t sure if he’s heard Joe correctly. Joe, who in the whole time that Jos has known him has never voluntarily got out of bed before 1030 _at the earliest_ at the weekend.

“You sure, my love? It means out of the door by 8:30, and I mean, breakfast at 7:30, but you’re definitely not going to make that are you?” Joe shakes his head with a little noise of disgust and his nose scrunches up, to Jos’ amusement. “I’ll wake you up when I brush my teeth, but don’t think I won’t leave without you if you’re not awake.” 

Joe hums contentedly in agreement and falls asleep pretty soon after, Jos carding his hand through Joe’s hair and Joe’s hand rolled in the hem of Jos’ jumper. 

When Jos’ alarm goes off Saturday morning, he follows his usual Saturday routine, getting out of bed after pressing a kiss to Joe’s temple and extracting himself from the tangle of limbs. This time, however, as he makes his breakfast, he brews a Yorkshire Tea, pouring it into a thermos, on the off chance that Joe _does_ make it out of bed on time. 

As promised, he makes his way into their bedroom after he’s brushed his teeth only to find Joe sat at the end of their bed, bleary eyed pulling on odd socks and wearing a Lancashire cricket jumper inside out. He blinks up at Jos as he enters and Jos’ heart melts. Jos grabs a different jumper from his wardrobe, not quite prepared to deal with how Joe would react if he woke up to the world sporting the red rose. Joe puts up no resistance as Jos redresses him and he hums happily as he's handed his tea. Jos glances at the clock on the bedside table. 8:32. Not bad, he thinks, bundling Joe into their car.

By the time they pull into the carpark Joe is considerably more awake, and is able to contribute more than monosyllabic responses, relatively chirpy given the time. 

Jos goes about his normal Saturday morning shop routine, asking about Maggie’s grandchildren as he passes her on his way in, and waving at Ellie, the small toddler who smiles and greets everyone she can see from her seat at the front of the trolley. Everyone, unsurprisingly, loves Joe, thrilled to ‘finally meet Jos’ man’ (which causes Joe to flush scarlett, as Mrs Gallagher winks at him, and telling Jos that he’d ‘better keep onto that one, or I’m next in line, sweetie, you’ve done well.’) They’re halfway through their shop, Jos having routinely checked items off the list as they went round while Joe pushed the trolley and made idle chit chat with other customers, when Jos goes to put a loaf of bread in the trolley. A tub of Ben and Jerry’s is poking out from under a cabbage. Taking a closer look at the trolley, he realises that it is far fuller than it usually is at this time on his morning shop.

He looks around and sees Joe helping Esther grab some rice from the top shelf and so starts to look through their trolley more thoroughly. Aside from his usual groceries Jos finds excess nonsense in their trolley, such as a tub of Heroes (even though Joe only really likes the eclairs and the rest of the chocolates sit on their shelf for months afterwards as they try to give them to their guests), a packet of felt tips, which Jos wouldn’t mind as much (he loves how good Joe is at art, how much solace he finds in it, and how it calms Joe’s mind) if Joe hadn’t bought a new packet the other day on their way back from a match at services. 

When Joe comes back to the trolley to drop off his own bag of rice, Jos has separated the items so all of Joe’s miscellaneous nonsensical items are at the end of their trolley and he flushes before looking up at Jos. 

“I can’t help it, I’m sorry, but look how fun this can opener is!”

“But we’ve already got a can opener.”

“Not a pink one, we don’t.”

“Put it back.”

Joe huffs as he collects his items from the trolley, going to return them, and they finish up their shopping without any further glitches.

(If Jos pretends he doesn’t notice the animal tupperwares that Joe has sneaked in then maybe he just didn’t see them as he placed them on the conveyor belt.)

* * *

Joe goes on holiday with his family after half a year of living together, leaving Jos alone in their apartment for the first time since they moved in together. 

Jos gets back from dropping him off at the train station, dropping his keys onto the dish on the side and untying his shoes. Going into their kitchen to make himself a coffee, he looked around and saw just how many houseplants they had and his heart sank. 

Joe was going to be away for a whole _fortnight_ how on earth was he going to keep these plants alive?

His first thought is that he should water them. They are Joe’s _babies,_ he _sings to them_ for crying out loud. If he’d have just called Ali, he would have known that Joe had already arranged for Ali to look after his plants and they didn’t need watering yet, because Ali always looked after Joe’s houseplants when he went away and had plans to come round that Friday to water them. Joe had forgotten to tell Jos because Jos had never been part of the holiday plant sitting routine Ali and Joe had set up, looking after each other’s plants when they went away.

So Jos _does_ water them. 

In fact, he overwaters them. So when Ali comes round on Friday arms full of plant fertilisers and a spray bottle, with Jimmy who’s carrying a bag full of tupperwares of leftovers, he finds that the plants are drooping, and the leaves have become limp. 

Ali smiles at Jos, 

“He forgot to tell you, didn’t he. Don’t worry, I’m sure we can salvage this.”

He moves the pots to a more shaded area, as Jimmy muses, 

“Worst comes the worst, we can buy a new plant, and hope he doesn’t notice”, laughing as Jos groans and sinks down into the armchair, head in his hands. 

Thankfully, Ali is a plant whisperer and by the time Joe’s back his plants are good as new, and Jos has never been so glad that they weren’t dead as when he came back early from Lancs training one Wednesday afternoon. 

Hoping to surprise Joe, he doesn’t announce his return to their apartment (with a ‘honey, I’m home’, which had started off as an ironic announcement and had somehow transformed into a genuine call and response between himself and Joe), and he makes his way down the hall, where he knows Joe will be cooking dinner. 

As he gets closer, he can hear Nat King Cole playing on the radio, accompanied by Joe’s own voice. He peers through the door, left ajar, and sees Joe, waltzing round the kitchen area, spoon in hand, in one of Jos’ hoodies that comes down to his mid thighs. Joe is serenading his basil plant, lifting it over his head in the hand not occupied with conducting the music using a wooden spoon and spinning it around.

Jos can’t help himself, he takes a picture, sending it to their group chat, hearing Joe’s notification go off from where his phone was on the side counter. Jos watches Joe put his basil carefully back on the windowsill and unlock his WhatsApp, entering into the room as Joe turns round in accusation. 

“ _Honey, you’re home?_ ”

* * *

Despite any stumbles that they might have experienced - Joe runs much colder than Jos and there were a few hiccoughs when it came to the AC temperature - domesticity comes naturally to Jos and Joe. They begin hosting dinner parties, inviting their friends to come over for brunches and catch ups. They settle into routines; Jos learning to flick the kettle on before he goes out for the morning, leaving a post-it on the kettle telling Joe he loves him. He enjoys the dead time they spend together, now that their time together stretches further than simply date nights and training, they can lie on the sofa together, feet intertwined on their phones, sending each other an insta post from their shared sofa, waiting for a reaction. When before Joe would have thrown the dishes into the sink, to come back to them later because now was ‘Jos Time’, something Jos knew went against everything Joe stood for and caused him a lot of stress that he would never acknowledge, now Joe got to spend time cleaning the dishes straight after dinner while Jos comes around from behind and rests his head on Joe’s shoulder. The comfort that Jos finds after a bad day, when he’s low, in Joe just sitting with him, talking about his day, his book, anything that will distract Jos from whatever it is that’s bothering him. 

They no longer go to events glued to each other’s side, not wanting to spend their limited time apart. Instead Joe will take the time to go to dinner with Ben, to come home to Jos asleep in the snug, having tried to wait up but not quite managed it. Joe can drive down to Ali’s and come back the next day, knowing Jos isn’t going anywhere. Jos used to have to decide between going down to visit family or Joe at the weekend, but now Joe either comes with him or does his own thing, but they both know that sooner or later they’ll be back together. Jos pretending to look for the jumper he knows Joe stole last week.

Their kisses are no longer the desperate and fiery affairs that they used to be, instead they’re much more frequent and grounding. Kisses when they leave, when they get home, when they make each other a tea. When they park their car, when they get up, when they go to bed. Kisses on the forehead, on the nose. Joe pressing kisses to Jos’ shoulder when he hugs him from behind. 

No, there aren’t butterflies anymore like there used to be, at least not for Joe, and he doesn’t think Jos has them either. He no longer feels light headed when Jos smiles at him, no longer feels dizzy when Jos is around. It's the opposite. He feels grounded, now they live together. That little bit calmer, that little bit more secure. 

The best part of living together, is they still love each other just as much as the day they first started dating. Even if it is in a different way to before. Even though they’ve learned things about the other that they’ve tried so hard to hide for so long. How, even when Joe forgets to make the bed, even when Jos leaves a mug in the sink instead of washing it up, they still love each other. They've made themselves a home.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The last paragraph may or may not be just some other fluff ideas I had of Joe and Jos scenarios but ran out of steam to complete. It's also a little shorter than usual, sorry !!!  
> Hope you enjoyed !!!  
> Xx


End file.
